Gender-segregated spaces in Icelandic high schools: resistance, power and subjectification

ABSTRACT

Organization of spaces in schools often revolves around gender and sexuality. For example, it has been reported that restrooms and locker rooms are the most heteronormative and heterosexist spaces within schools. Particularly within these spaces, hegemonic heterosexual masculinity/femininity is institutionalized, not only in the practices and individual performances, but also in the organization of these spaces. In that sense, the space of the restroom and the locker room is regulated and constructed on the basis of gender binaries, and as such, inscribes disciplinary power on those gendered bodies that do not conform to the hegemonic gender regime. For trans/transgender students and other gender-nonconforming students, these spaces have been experienced as hostile and problematic. The paper draws on ethnographic data from two Icelandic high schools and has the aim of moving the discussion about gender divided spaces (restrooms and locker/changing rooms) outside the sole emphasis on gender binaries by incorporating into the analysis identity categories based on sexuality and trans/transgender/gender-queer embodiment.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• transsexual
• transgender
• restrooms
• locker rooms
• LGBTQ
• queer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Jón Ingvar Kjaran is assistant professor of Sociology of Education and Gender Studies at the School of Education and United Nations University for Gender Equality at the University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland.

ORCID

Jón Ingvar Kjaran http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6221-6382

Notes

1 All names used in this paper are pseudonyms, except for Mæló who published her article in a school journal under her own name.

2 The origins of the symbol for the combined gender can be traced back to the Swedish biologist Carl Linnaeus who first applied those symbols separately to distinguish between male and female species. Those symbols had its roots in astrology in which ♂ symbolized Mars and ♀ was assigned for Venus (Stearn 1962). Linnaeus transferred these symbols to biology where they have ever since been used to denote the biological sex of species.

3 Trans is used here as a shorthand to mean both transgender and transsexual as well as other identities under the trans/transgender umbrella.